Cameras are used in many different applications, both indoors and outdoors, to monitor a variety of environments. In certain situations there may be a need to treat one part of a captured image different from another part, such as when a building with windows is monitored and there is a need to avoid monitoring the inside of the building through the window. In such an instance, a privacy mask may be defined by marking the window to be masked on the image in a graphical user interface. For a camera which is able to pan, tilt and/or zoom, the privacy mask may be defined in a PTZ coordinate system.
Another example of when there is a need to mark a part of an image is in a situation where a camera should detect movement only in a selected area of the image and ignore any motion in the rest of the image. This is usually solved by an operator selecting, e.g. by marking an image area in a user interface, which part of the image, such as the higher or lower part, should be removed from motion detection.
However, improvements in this area are still of interest.